The Holy City Leading up to David's Throne

(January 13)

This lecture is about the Canaanite Jerusalem, which is the Pre-Israelite and Middle-Late Bronze Age. There is a lot of pottery found from this era, and these findings are good evidence that back up many biblical claims. Something else that was found in this age were execration texts. These are clay tablets with hieroglyphic engravings founded from Sakkara, Egypt. These texts are similar to voodoo dolls. A person would write his/her enemies onto this tablet then smash it after to curse them. An execration text was found with Jerusalem's name on it, meaning that someone from Sakkara was trying to curse this city.
In addition, many stories in the Bible contradict one another. For example, there are three sections in the books of Joshua that talk about how the Israelites killed everyone, but in Joshua 15:63, it states that "the people of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites live with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this day." Then in Judges, this book talks about the Canaanites but they were supposedly wiped out already. This shows how some of the biblical texts oppose each other.
In this lecture, we also discussed Jerusalem under King David's rule. David is said to be a "man after God's own heart."Several stories about this king is told in the Bible. However, his existence is very controversial. Many scholars believe he did not exist because there are no other texts besides what is said in the Bible about his existence.